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Level 8

Four rules for value added photos

It seems from many postings in Google maps that it may serve as "one suites all" platform to share pictures from holidays, storing the "I've been to..." places database or to show one's artistic talent to the world. Eventhough it's true that the system couldn't do without these tendencies as its sources, I believe that in heart it is something very different - a special kind of media or channel. The main purpose of uploading a photo to a place in Google maps should be to add value for the user. And this means that the picture should contain some kind of new and relevant information - about the place of course. Thinking about how to choose the right pics to upload, I've come up with four rules to follow and I found them worth sharing with you.

 

1. Be specific (to the location)

It's fine to upload a photo of a cow to a cattle farm and one of a rare flower to a botanic garden. Not so fine are pictures of happy faces in the middle of some common street and those of moving objects disconected from the place. Such as the helicopter  against the blue sky on the left they don't tell anything about the place and could have been taken anywhere else. The picture on the right is yet slightly better as you can recognise the path to the lake of Sorapis.

 

Snímek1.JPG

2. Be precise

There's nothing more disturbing than a mismatched upload among the pictures. That's clear. But uploading a photo to a location you took it from is just not enough. I'll try to illustrate that on the following example. Both pictures were taken on the same place, Piazza di Porta Ravegna in Bologna. Actualy, and this is the catch, they were taken from the top of the higher of the Two Towers (they are called what they are). Whereas linking the one on the left to the Piazza di Porta Ravegna would be a mistake because the square is not in the photo and what is in the photo can't be seen from the square, for the picture on the right, it's not only ok but even better than linking it to the Two Towers because the view is not so typical and therefore inaccurate.

 

Snímek2.JPG

3. Be original (Don't upload postcards.)

To be valuable, an information must be new. It makes no sense to upload dozens of pictures that show exactly the same as any of the others. The most famous places are visited by millions every year and most of them have the very same first idea for a picture. The most common views are replicated on postcards and appear first on Google search. Be different, show something the others didn't notice. I tried to illustrate the idea with the following captions from the Peggy Guggenheim museum in Venice. (I don't claim any of them is great.)

 

Snímek3.JPG

4. Be original - beat the Streetview!

It's not only other photographers that you're going to be compared with when putting photos in Google maps. Google Streetview has great coverage of touristic places and it's not limited to the outside! You certainly know that thanks to it you can virtually walk through many galleries and museums, such as Uffizi in Firenze. Here I think there's a great space for some artistic invention. You can definitely come up with better pictures than a machine or me here below. Just remember that with this fabulous thing in place, you have to try harder.

 

Snímek4.JPG

Soon I'll finish a little study on how different pictures are doing in terms of popularity with regard to these principles. Stay tuned!

15 comments
Former Google Contributor

Re: Four rules for value added photos

@CaptainHook Thanks for sharing your own photography thoughts and insights with us 🙂 We have featured your post on the homepage today. 

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Connect Moderator

Re: Four rules for value added photos

Connect Moderator

Re: Four rules for value added photos

muy buen artículo @CaptainHook, sabios consejos, supongo que en algún momento se creará un filtro especial, para que el sistema de Google Maps, descarte algunas fotos en forma automática, las que son irrelevantes al lugar o que no aportan nada. 

 

saludos Farid

Level 7

Re: Four rules for value added photos

Hi @CaptainHook

great Post !

i'm exited to wait Your resume.

 

 

cheers,

Andrey

Connect Moderator

Re: Four rules for value added photos

Level 9
Level 9

Re: Four rules for value added photos

Hi @CaptainHook 

Very interesting post that raised a couple of questions:

 

@martinh wrote:

It's fine to upload a photo of a cow to a cattle farm and one of a rare flower to a botanic garden. 



 I asked on another thread about photos of flowers (and clouds, sunsets, squirrels etc) to ascertain whether they are helpful and so permitted on the map. If you follow the link you'll see I'm waiting on a reply from @LuisRG. Your example of a rare flower in a botanical garden is probably different to common daisy in a park, but what about a squirrel, or cloud, or sunset, or your family having a picnic - they're all in the park but they could really be anywhere? I definitely don't know the answer here but I think more guidance is needed from Google staffers regarding what really helps a map user understand what a place is like. When a LG posts pictures to the map, where do you draw the line between being a helpful mapper and just uploading your personal esoteric photo album to the world?

 

@martinh wrote:

 

Snímek3.JPG

 


 In your second photo on the right, I'm wondering if this goes against the photography guidance from AnnaD : "Users should immediately understand what they are looking at."  It's a beautiful artistic shot, but could there be ambiguity here whether the building in the background is the obvious point of interest or it's the ironwork in the foreground? This is just a question from a non-expert, not a statement of fact!

Level 8

Re: Four rules for value added photos

@Corrie Wow , that's a real honor!

Level 8

Re: Four rules for value added photos

@FaridTDF Yes, such a tool would be a huge and valuable thing. Nonetheless I like the fact that people are and for long enough will be "at the driving wheel" of it. Even if they aren't very efficient.

Level 7

Re: Four rules for value added photos

thank you